Dessert
by Hibz
Summary: My first fan fiction I've ever written. The w's don't work well on my keyboard so forgive me. Enjoy!


Dessert

"Well, what do you see?" Jack Crawford was breathing on Will Graham's neck, standing right beside him impatiently.  
Will looked around the room, his eyes wide and bluer than ever. While FBI photographers snapped pictures of the crime scene, Graham came close to the murder site. He dared to touch the victim, his rubber blue latex gloves now blotched with thick, dark blood. There were six dead bodies arranged on the couch like dolls. Like a family. There was a mother, a father, another man—perhaps an uncle—and a number of children dead, with their mouths stitched into wide smiles and their eyes sown open with black string. The six bodies were all sawed in half, organs hollowed out so well—like a child finger-spooning the last few licks of peanut butter out of its jar.  
"_Will._" Jack's eagerness lingered with his breath.  
Will closed his bluer-than-usual eyes as Jack and the FBI team started to evacuate the space. They left Will Graham to think by himself, like insanity was best left unwitnessed. _This is my design._  
The scene begins to rewind itself.  
_The family is separated. Not together. They are off on their own. Somebody enters the room. The kitchen. The daughter is slashed in the stomach, the blood staining the kitchen tile floor and her uneaten grilled cheese sandwich. The murder. He marches towards the TV room and slashes the remaining two children in the exact same way. He heads for the bedroom. The mother and father are killed in an instant. Living wasn't an option, not even for a spare nano-moment. The bodies are dragged to one central area—the couch. The legs are cut and discarded. The organs inside of each torso, also discarded. The stranger takes a needle, threading the string through. With the thread, the stranger tapes their lips together, extending them out into large, extravagant smiles. Their eyes are kept open.  
_Will woke up from the nightmare he chose to dream of.  
He took deep breaths and pretended it didn't bother him. He came close to the corpses again. They were turning pale and almost purple. He dug his hand through a litter girl's body. His hand fit perfectly through her jaw.  
"Why are you doing this to him?" Alana was trying to be as casual as possible while still attempting to show her anger. "Why him, Jack?"  
"Because he does his job and he does his job well," Jack folded his arms and stared at Will barely being able to stand.  
"It's ruining him, Jack. Look at him."  
Jack was already looking. He gave no reply to Alana.  
"You're not doing this because he does his job well," Alana hissed with a painful whisper. "You're doing this because Will is the only one that will let himself drive his sanity this far."  
Will Graham approached Jack, stripping off his bloody gloves. "Five victims were from this house, the sixth body has whereabouts unknown. Whoever killed them, though, seemed to have a gusto for puppets. Their organs and tracheal system were hollowed out to perfection, and the..."  
Will saw a moose stomp slowly into the room, steam rolling out of its nostrils. He did not move.  
"Will?" Alana was careful when she touched him on the shoulder. Not even a twitch. "Will, are you all right?"  
He blinked a few times. It was then when Alana noticed how perpetually exhausted he was.  
"Yes, I'm fine."

Alana's phone rang.  
"I need you to come to my house." Will's sound waves chilled in her ear. He sounded relived that she picked up.  
"And may I ask why?"  
"Don't take your time."  
The phone hung up.

It took ten and a half seconds for Will to answer the door, Winston barking right between his legs. Alana pet the animal and let herself in, taking off her cross-body bag and trench coat, revealing a floral, knee-length dress.  
"It's nice to see that you're wearing something nice," Will bowed his shaggy-haired head slightly.  
"Thank you."  
"Because we're going to dinner," Will continued.  
"We are?"  
"Actually, I am. I need you to drive me to Hannibal's house."  
"Why can't you?"  
"I don't think I can drive. I've been having—" he paused, as if he forgot his point. "those hallucinations lately."  
"Then why are you going to Hannibal for? Why didn't you talk to someone about this?"  
"I did. Hannibal. And he invited me for dinner."  
"Oh," Alana wished she was the one Will would talk to. "Well, I meant Jack."  
Jack Crawford. Will did not want to talk about Jack Crawford. "I'm fine," he assured her, closing the conversation. "So will you take me?" He was buttoning up a blouse over his undershirt, hiding the spaghetti stains.  
"Yes."  
"Will you join me?"  
Alana took a moment to think. Will laughed, adjusting his collar. "Alana, are you hungry or not?"  
"No, I'm not," Alana admitted. "But I'll go. After all, I've always enjoyed Hannibal's cooking."

Hannibal was always prepared when it came to serving guests. He was sharply dressed in a white dress shirt, a black vest and shiny shoes. His hair was perfectly parted down the side, groomed and straight. The doorknob twisted. "Ah, Alana," he let out a forced smile. "I didn't expect to see you here. No matter, I have prepared plenty enough for all of us."He spoke with such appeal, his charming accent prevalent in his gentle words.  
"Are you sure there's enough?" Will asked, the two guests removing their coats. Hannibal took them, hiding his smirk behind his wicked, haunting eyes. "Yes."

The soft hums of classical music blended into the air with the record player's jumping needle. Alana's beady eyes were glinting in the candlelight in front of her. Her tender face did not match her facial expression. She and Will were alone, while Hannibal was preparing dinner. She took a sip of bleeding wine. "I have a question for you, Will."  
Will sat attentively, "All right."  
"Do you feel safe?"  
Will found himself not knowing the answer to her question.  
"Something isn't right about Hannibal," she whispered. "I don't think he's taking care of you properly."  
"What do you know about Hannibal, Alana?"  
"I just want you all right, Will. I want you safe."  
"Well, you should've thought about that," Will reclined, resting his back onto the seat again. "When you wouldn't let me kiss you."  
They shared one last glance at each other before Hannibal sauntered in with two silver trays in his hands and a third balancing steadily on his forearm. He narrated the components of what he cooked as he delicately placed each plate in front of his guests, entertaining them with his articulate speech. He removed the silver cloche from each of the three dishes and sat at the end of the table like he always did. "Smoked rabbit with a lemon-cherry sauce over a bed of watercress salad. And for dessert? Poached pears in red wine with some whipped cream," his accent was as thick and as rich as the food sounded.  
The knife cut into the tender leg of the pink meat, juices squirting from it as the mutton shredded into juicy flakes. "Try the sauce," Hannibal insisted. Alana and Will tried the drizzle, dipping the rabbit into the red liquid. Coating it in it. They chewed. The notes of sweet and sour, the flavor of best meat they've ever tasted. It touched their every taste bud.  
Forks and knives clangered as the lady and gentlemen ate slowly. "So Will," Hannibal swallowed his watercress before he continued. "You phoned me about the hallucinations you've been having. Please. Elaborate."  
"Well, they seemed to have been getting progressively worse. It's like I'm losing touch of what is real and what is in my head, like I can't tell the difference anymore."  
"Have you been drawing the clock I've been telling you to?"  
"Yes."  
More juices squirted out of the meat.  
"Then you should be fine."  
Alana's grip on her knife tightened. She then, however, released her claps on all utensils, barely finished with her food. "Dr. Lecter, you have an amazing home." She rose from the table. "May I...take a look around?"  
"Of course," Dr. Lecter replied with no hesitation, getting up as well. He then turned to Will. "Will, will you join us?"

Hannibal recited everything about every artifact that was on his walls, under his tables, over his shelves, and in his books. And he recited it beautifully.  
"This looks rather interesting," Will smiled his crooked, broken smile at a painting that hung over Dr. Lecter's lavish wallpaper. It was of a blood-thirsty man holding a beheaded baby. "That is a replica by Spanish painter Fransisco Goya in 1923. _Museo del Prado_."  
"And what does that mean?" Will stared at the morbidity of it with his hands uncomfortably behind his back.  
"Saturn Devouring His Son."  
While Lecter and Will discussed the painting, this gave Alana the opportunity to scamper a few meters away from them. Her legs cat-walked towards a bookshelf. Next to the bookshelf, there was an end table. On the end table, there as a book. In the book, there were pages. Alana flipped open to a random page, finding records upon records of the murder cases Will had been faced with since he'd started working with Jack. "Will...?" Alana took a few reverse steps until her back hit a surface. She turned to realize that the surface she hit was Hannibal. "Will?" She pleaded for him, scared of Lecter's eyes. "_Will!"_ Will started to shake abnormally, his whole body failing. Alana ran to him, grabbing hold of his meek, feckless chest before he hit the ground. His shuddering had gone out of his own control, falling out of her arms. He was left on the wooden floor, quivering and trembling like a lone lunatic. "_Will! Will! Will!_" She kept screaming his name. Hannibal had disappeared. After the fifteenth _Will!,_ Hannibal returned. After the sixteenth _Will!_, Alana had stopped screaming.

Blurred copies of Dr. Lecter's face staring quietly at Will's started to take focus. The doctor stared at the poor man with kindness. He pitied him.  
Will kept his body on the floor. "What happened?"  
Dr. Lecter was always the cunning one. "You tell me."  
"The murderer. The puppet master. He came here and...and...took Alana. Was I hallucinating?" Will Graham's voice was as shaky as his arms, his eyes stinging from the chandelier light above him. Hannibal tightened his chest as well as his face. "No, that was what happened."  
"Where is Alana now?"  
"She's dead." Hannibal offered his hand to Will to help him up. Will didn't take it, insisting to remain on the ground. His blue eyes bluer than ever, glassy and watery. A single bead of a tear rolled down his cheek, shrinking and evaporating from the heat in his face, just trickles barely reaching his sweaty neck.  
"I'm so sorry," Hannibal said, not feeling sorry at all.  
"It's a shame," Dr. Lecter continued. "She didn't even get to stay for dessert."

5th of November, 2013


End file.
